Haunting Nightmares
by Tracy Diane Miller
Summary: Over the years, Gary has experienced many nightmares because of his failure in saving Jeremiah


Haunting Nightmares  
  
Summary: Over the years, Gary has experienced many nightmares because of his failure in saving Jeremiah. But this nightmare is one of his most frightening and confusing. This very short story is a different spin on "Fate". WARNING- As the title implies, this story is about nightmares. The subject matter isn't pleasant. Consequently, read at your own risk.  
  
Disclaimer: Early Edition characters belong to whoever created them. No copyright infringement intended. No profit is being made.  
  
Author's Notes: This story resulted from a very strange dream that I had recently. Not quite sure if even I understand it, but I needed to write it down while the memory was still fresh in my mind.  
  
Author: Tracy Diane Miller E-mail address: tdmiller82@hotmail.com  
  
Haunting Nightmares  
  
People talk about being homeless as if it is one's choice. Is it just ignorance that leads a person to believe that a man chooses to sleep on the street, to have the cold whipping his body mercilessly, and to have to rummage through garbage cans for food?  
  
Disoriented, maybe, as he hears the voices from his past mock him, laugh at him, then turn him away when he needs comfort and reassurance. They don't want him. Maybe they never did.  
  
His parents loved him, that much he knew. But they're gone now. Some nights when he's able to find shelter, he falls asleep hearing his mother's soothing voice. "I love you" she says. He wraps himself in that memory, the memory of her voice and her touch. She always took care of him. And sadly, he had taken that for granted.  
  
He loved his wife very much. He imagined that they would grow old together, surrounded by children and grandchildren, but that didn't happen. She ended their marriage. One fine day and without warning, she wanted nothing else to do with him. She didn't love him anymore. Maybe she never did.  
  
His friends deserted him. He never knew why. Maybe they couldn't understand or accept the kind of life that he led. He couldn't understand it either. But he had no choice. Fate had handed him this kind of life.  
  
It was cold. He had been able to find shelter in a storage shed on a rooftop in an apartment building. It wasn't much, but he could keep warm there.  
  
It all happened so fast. A man flung open the door to the storage shed and told him that he had to leave. The apartment building was on fire. They couldn't get back down the stairs as smoke and flames raced through the structure. Clinging to his boot, he was so afraid.  
  
The man seemed afraid, too. The man knew that they needed to get off of that roof. The man found a ladder and placed it across a nearby rooftop creating a makeshift bridge. The man was going to go across the ladder first then talk him across. He watched as the man slowly and carefully crawled across the roof. Now it was his turn.  
  
The man told him to put the boot into his pocket. He started across the roof, shakily. Ever since he was a child, he had been afraid of heights. Finally, he was almost across when he started to slip. The man grabbed his hand.  
  
"I've got you, Gary. Hold on! Hold on." Snow commanded.  
  
Frightened mud green eyes stared into the eyes of the hero. Gary's hand was slipping from Snow's grasp. "I can't." Gary realized before he began to fall.  
  
An opened newspaper appeared on the ground. The paper was turned to the obituary section. The sad announcement and accompanying photograph identified the victim as Gary Hobson, 33.  
  
Gary jumped up in his bed. His heart was pounding and his breathing was labored. Gary's body was drenched in sweat.  
  
The clock on the night stand read 4:00 a.m. It was still dark outside and the streets were quiet as Chicago slept peacefully.  
  
But not all of Chicago slept peacefully this night. For one man, a hero, had wrestled with haunting nightmares. Memories of the past, of life and death, performed dizzying pirouettes inside of his brain.  
  
What had this nightmare meant? He didn't know. And in a few hours, Cat and the Paper would arrive.  
  
His early edition dealt in the future, not the past. The Paper wouldn't have the answers. This time, he wished that it did.  
  
The End 


End file.
